countries do, they find an endless number of documents and what has always been striking about the united states is we don't find that many documents because we tend to take a much more seriously so the new liberal realist's characterized by this strange, i would say strange belief that you confined things and ignore the menu will have no consequence for you. i would say the risk that is presented by this wing is not their realism but it is a realism that is too clever by half. it believes that it can have its cake and eat it too, that it can find all sorts of end andless idealistic documents and do whatever it feels like push comes to shove and that is a huge mistake. it thinks the power of words is much more binding and influential than is realized and these are things when it comes

to finding out, discover that they have not so much bound 1 down the road, a much scarier risk, our friends see us finding all sorts of things and saying yes, to all sorts of people. and agreeing to read that to the degree that we want and talk about preconditions, sounds great. our friends are not treating this as merely cost free exercise and symbolism, our friends particularly in asia are looking at this as close allies and saying if they're willing to toss the lines it says anything to anybody, do we really actually trust them in the way we traditionally trust americans. that means one fundamental thing, if war comes to the asia-pacific will u.s. be there and if you believe that the u.s. will be there, it does more to

deter war. the moment you start to believe that the u.s. doesn't believe even symbolic statements, you start thinking about that much harder. in the clash between new liberal realists, has been fantastically costly for the u.s.'s long-term position not because the realism is wrong but because it is realism or belief that it can have and always, have your cake and eat it too, say what you want and make more down the road. >> host: what is your background? >> at american university, i teach a combination of business law and actually don't really teach in the way international law courses and public international law. i am a visiting fellow at the hoover institution in

california, nonresident senior fellow at the brookings institution in washington d.c. and in those areas, most international security, this book, i am proud to say was published by the institution press, and i have a background that is schizophrenic, i have a background in finance and business and tax law and that sort of stuff. earlier in my career i was a long time non-profit lawyer and that sort of stuff, and general counsel to the george soros foundation and the open society. i have drifted to the right i have to say some what. before that i was the director of the human rights watch arms division in new york. i have another career in on profits of but also sort of the long background in transactional business practices a lot of

which involve development and finance and international development issues and one of the things i enjoy it was the chance to write a chapter, a general take on the u.n. and address specifically the development issues and international relations, don't really understand and are not comfortable picking up but those are areas that i have been involved in a long time. i have a split personality, a lot of international security stuff, and very much related to drones and targeted killing and counter terrorism and those kinds of things and on the other hand, business and nonprofit background and these areas as well. currently my big fascination is a lot. >> host: when you hear the term one world government what do you think? >> i don't think anything. i break out in hives.

is not possible, i also think it is not desirable. what i do think is most relevant to that is a belief that it is desirable and one should be working towards that actually cripples the un more than any other single thing. i say in this book, turns out to be the biggest believers because the people who truly believe that the u.n. is going to over time become this kind of flower in world government, what they do is they put the u.n. in the position of being the unruly, bad child who always has to be excused because of the sort of future potential about what it might turn into. you can't ever hold the u.n. treaty to account because of the fact you always have to excuse

it because you look down a road and say but someday it might become this and if we clobber it here we sort of lose that opportunity. i don't think it is becoming that. i don't think it has any chance of becoming that and it is a much better thing to simply renounce all that kind of forward looking nonsense and focus on the un not becoming a flower in, growing, spreading tree of global governance but instead think of itself as 30 hedgerows that voted a particular task which take as much of the politics out of its performance as possible and exit simply a technocratic institution devoted to very particular things. and then for the parts that are inherently political, the general assembly, the security

council, these parts, to see them flow is not on a sort of train track trying to get to this kind of future point where it becomes something completely different from what it is but to say this is what we are and we are going to live or gain a political organization essentially, a diplomatic talking shop for the nation and that is pretty good and pretty important and we actually poisoned that world to the demand the we become something different down the road. >> host: we are talking to university professor kenneth anderson about his book "living with the u.n.: american responsibilities and international order" 11. thank you, prof. anderson. >> thank you, i really appreciate this. >> a you interested in being part of booktv's online book club? each month we will discuss a different book and author.

this month we will be discussing michelle ng alexander's the new jim crow:mass incarceration in the age of colorblind list. post your thoughts on twitter with the hash tag booktv book club and right on our facebook page, and on tuesday, march 26th that 9:00 p.m. eastern, join our live moderated discussion on twitter hash tag b t the book club. in your suggestions on book he would like to read as part of the book club on twitter, facebook or e-mail booktv@c-span.org. >> good morning,. i moved up my flight and i am going to go to the airport right after, literally right after i spent ten minutes reading. i am going to read something quite short on the fear that

less is more which is what i try to tell my writing students, and speaking of them, one of the reasons i am hurtling back to philadelphia is because i have to hold office hours tomorrow with a lovely little ivy brats. best to get home and sleep well or try to sleep well although my wife and i say we haven't slept wilson's the jimmy carter administration. thank you so much, holding up, you are holding us up. that is the key. i bet i won't even have time to formally say thank you and goodbye to miles so i will just say to miles how eloquent his little segway introductions have been and tell him goodbye. and all the rest of view for

coming. i am supposed to read some things. i was fretting about what that would be because i wanted to make it very short. i am going to read from the end of the prologue. one of the things i was trying to stress in the talk that i gave yesterday, and indeed the panel i appeared on the day before is for all of the undeniable, appalling, dark side of ernest hemingway there was also the light, there was this bone of generosity and sometimes it came out best when a child was involved, not his own child necessarily and especially an ill child. who wouldn't respond to that but he seemed to respond in a special way.

i was thinking of reading something of a key west passage and i said no, that would be like a piece of coal offering something to newcastle, so i am not going to read that. i am just going to read this little moment from the end of the prologue and indeed it is the end of ernest hemingway's life. when everything is lost, but there is still something there. look backward 17 days from his death to june 16th, 1961, in rochester, minnesota. a man in a psychiatric ward at st. mary's hospital is writing a letter to a 9-year-old boy. the man writes on too -- two small seeds of notepaper in big round legible hand with his

trademark downhills land. and irreversible the damage ernest hemingway, his inner landscape now a paranoid's nightmare, has found within himself at the end of his life the kindness and courage and momentary lucidity, not to say literary grace, to right 210 beautiful words to a kid he likes very much. whenever i began to feel revulsion at hemingway's eagle and boorish behavior toward other human beings, i like to take out a copy of this letter. 210 words, with so much emotion tucked below the surface of the pros, the sentences pile driven by contained feeling and acute observation of the natural world would have been a half decent output for a work day, even in a

master's prime. the boy, his name is frederick g. saviors although everyone including hemingway called him fritz, has a congenital heart condition. he is the son of george saviors, hemingway's small-town doctor who was also one of hemingway's favorite duck hunting companions. in these last weeks, hemingway has been brought once more from idaho for treatment to mayo. not long after this note hemingway will fool is foolish doctors at the world-famous clinic into believing he is well enough to go home to idaho and almost immediately the boss shotgun will go off in the sunday quiet of the house that sits a couple hundred yards up the steep slope from the west bank of the big wood river.

the patient on the locked ward at st. mary's on june 15, 1961, has just learned that dr. xavier's son is in a denver hospital. in idaho, hemingway and fritz and fritz's father liked talking about the yankees and rainbow trout, but none of that will ever be the same again. st. mary's hospital, rochester, minn. june 15th, 1961. deer fritz, i was terribly sorry to hear this morning in a note from your father that you were laid up in denver for a few days more, and speed off this note to tell you how much i hope you will be feeling better.

it has been very hot and muggy in rochester but the last two days it has turned cool and lovely with tonight's wonderful for sleeping. the country is beautiful around here and i have had a chance to see some wonderful country along the mississippi where they used to drive the logs in the old lumbering gait and the trails where the pioneers came north, saw some good bass jumping in the river. i never knew anything about the upper mississippi before and it is really a very beautiful country and there are plenty of pheasants and ducks in the fall but not as many as in idaho and i hope we will both be back there shortly and can joke about a hospital experience together. best always to you, old timer, from your good friend who misses you very much, mr. popoff. ps, best to all the family and

feeling fine and very careful about things in mineral and hope to see you all soon, pablo. no one knows for sure, but these seem to be the last real sentences ernest hemingway said down on paper amid so much ruined, still the beauty. thank you very much. [applause] >> monday at 9:00 eastern, c-span's new series first lady influence and image takes an in-depth look at the life of "abigail adams". visit c-span.org/firstlady. next a talk from 2009 by biographer woody holton. this is an hour and 15 minutes.

[applause] >> this room as most of you know used to be a library and this book was born in this room exactly five years ago so imagine for a second with relatives for me to come back to this room, to take this 5-year-old boat and send it out into the world. i'm immensely grateful to be able to do that, immensely grateful not only for the amazing resources, that goes without saying but the amazing people and this is a place, massachusetts historical society, where uncommon generosity is a common virtue and i am immensely grateful to the staff of the adams papers and in particular konrad's wife, the research director and in particular maggie hogan knew

without much, there's no way i could possibly have written the book. if you find any mistakes in the book maggie will be available after the talk. one of the fun questions that everybody writing a biography of abigail adams gets to and has to confront is how was she and how are other women affected by the american revolution? many of you know that john adams was gone for most of that decade that overlap the american revolution from 1774 to 1784. and during that decade he put abigail in charge not only of his farm. and the finances too. i was happy to discover in this room five years ago, while working on my previous book that abigail adams ran the addams

family finances much better than her husband never had. she had a saying that we sign a version of today, nothing ventured, nothing had which kind of scared john because he was conservative not only politically but in his temperament and finances too. she scared him with some of what she did but in the process she made in a rich man. i am looking for progress because i am from virginia and you know his successors as president, thomas jefferson from monticello and james madison of monte leader when they died they died so deep in debt that those two beautiful plantations had to be sold to pay the debt. not so john adams. he had a lot to do with that with his legal career but that ended 50 years before his death.

as a lawyer -- i think the financial records survived as well as the correspondence did, of we would see pretty good evidence that abigail had much to do with the family's wealth as he did. i had a pet theory early on in this project that maybe her success as a financial manager would leave a visible trace in the written record. i am interested in all these statements in favor of women's rights, she made them not only to her husband john, the lady's letter got an excerpt there but she wrote her niece's talking about women's education and advocating that to lot of other men, her husband. her pet theory was maybe if we take this release statement in favor of women's rights in 1776, and compare to what she wrote at

the end war, we would see her more fired up, more confident and making stronger demand. i want to tell you the base of that, and how did she do so well financially? the three ways she did, and everyone overseas, and in the united states it is traditional to send that money home. john, when he was in france at the american diplomat send the money home, he wanted to do it by having abigail throw the exchange on him. abigail said that would be ok, you are the husband, we will do that if you want.

and very high prices. in massachusetts. so instead of taking that cash and using it to buy a chest of goods and ship it over, we have known about this for a long time, but we have known the extent of it because john referred to these shipments as good for family use. a present that i thought i would send you but if you go to the addams family correspondence there is an illustration of one of the inventories of goods being sent over, the shipping lists, and 87% by value, are not present. and obviously intended for resale. that is one of the mysteries i admit i haven't solved. i refer to these as for family use. was it not respectable for the wife of a diplomat? that is possible. there are lots of women in boston who were merchants and i will tell you about women's

merchants copyright that abigail reported on in 1777. or maybe -- this was the theory i went with in the book, when a ship was captured by the enemy it was traditional to let the crew and passengers keep their personal items. maybe the reason john referred to leave as for family use was maybe if they were captured they wouldn't be, i am not sure. the reality is that one of the early shipments john senden abigail was captured. and burn the fingers and don't want to meddle in this and abigail wrote john back saying it is true this is a dangerous business, but the very process that makes it dangerous, did rule -- the warships controlled the atlantic but the few ships that can run the blockade, the people with good on those ships can name aron price. to quote her, she said if one in

3 arius i should be a gain. which i take as the 18th-century version of we just don't get it. even chilly he did get it and he continued his shipments and these shipments had some fascinating influences on the relationship between the husband and his wife. they had been debating for some time and there are couples in this room who had this debate, whether to buy new vehicles. some of you have. wanted to wait, he was a good from will yankee, she said it is so shabby we have got to get a new one and the prices were up even though they were made in massachusetts, there's a war on she said to her own clients. he sent her a shipment in 1780 barcelona handkerchiefs. they were woman's item.

they happened to hit in the middle of a terrible shortage when they bring in high fashion. she sold them for enough money -- what could john say? she bought it with her own money. in that same year, 1780, john adams had an idea. he says to abigail, having had some of our shipments sees, what i should do is instead of putting them in these big chests and shipping them across the atlantic i will disburse them and ask everybody who goes from france to massachusetts to take a little thing for you. that way we are spreading the risk and he sent the first shipment of presents with the marquis they lafayette. the french hero of the revolutionary war, lafayette, went home every winter when the army was not fighting, no reason to stick around here, he went home and when he came back in

1780, he brought some suffer abigail and abigail wrote her husband saying your will is lot to me. that is what we will do. but if you want to disperse your shipments like that you are going to have to buy the items to send me retail. and you have got to buy wholesale, she said. and she convinced him and the remaining shipments came wholesale land pretty soon they got a writ to where john was involved in the process, he rode straight to amsterdam and paris and barcelona. and they send the goods directly to her. another source of income of hers, it was a long-term investment that didn't pay off during the war, by the time the revolutionary war, the indians had been driven out of vermont

but it was not settled by europeans coming up from other colonies and so it was the wild frontier, a great place to speculate the land because everyone knew it was going to be settled but also a risky place to do that because new york claimed most of vermont as part of new york's territory and new hampshire claimed the rest and people like ethan allen and his green mountain boys had the same time they were fighting the british also fighting n.y. and new hampshire to claim that land and somebody came to abigail adams and said wouldn't you like to buy in early this land in vermont on behalf of your husband? and she did. there was a limit to how many acres you could buy but she bought one of these acres, she bought one on behalf of her husband and each of her four

children. the only person on whose behalf she did not buy one of these plots was herself. because she is unmarried woman and married women can't control property but even her little daughter was -- 78 -- she has not yet reached her 20 first birthday and is living at home, she got one as did her brother. abigail was a little worried about what john was going to think of this idea and said you're going to think i am vermont mad and he did. he wrote her saying don't meddle anymore. initially i thought the story ended their but it didn't. although she didn't buy any more tracks, she did keep pushing on to try to buy more land in vermont. a married woman can't control

property. one thing she can do is inherit land, she can prevent her husband from selling, she has detailed power on him selling her land and abigail inherited a land from her mom and said to john i know you don't want this land, who cares about that? if you will buy more land i will let you sell this land in northborough. an example of negotiating constantly with him. not too unfamiliar, but not exactly what you expect from a revolutionary era family. the third way abigail made money for her husband was one that i stumbled across here while working at the massachusetts historical society. i was reading the correspondence that maggie hogan is the editor of, and she kept talking about

notes. i want to buy more notes and i wasn't sure what she meant by notes but it eventually became clear with you was doing was speculating in government securities. often pretty large denominations , and the soldiers got these bonds while there were still in the army camp, and they had to get home. the army did not pay for they're expenses to travel home.

so some of these guys had no money, and you have to stay in in this and so forth on the way, and buy food. so the god with these bonds to real money. nobody would get them this dahlia for the bonds. the essence of less than $0.10 on the dollar. that summary would be if your someone who response to a speculator you have 10 percent of the face value. you had to go from west point on the hudson river home to connecticut. and not very far trip, but he says that he took all the bonds that he was paid fighting in that war, and he had been in the army for six years, took all of his bonds and sold them and got not face value but just enough money to pay for a new suit of clothes to look something like myself. a new set of clothing and his travel expenses don't. that was as pay for his six

years and mcconnell army. and then the soldiers get home and face incredibly high taxes, one of the main pro volcker's of shay's rebellion because the state governments are levying taxes within. no longer in the hands of soldiers like daniel shea. ho from a soldier standpoint this is a real rip-off, and that is what you get rebellion's like that. but from the speculators and quite this is a very profitable investment. one of the early securities, she bought it at $100 bond for $25, $24. and the interest is 6 percent per year, but that 6 percent of 100, right. getting $6 per year. remember, her initial investment

was $24. support at six on top of the 24. she's making a 25% annual return on her investment. john did not like the idea when she first reported it to him. he did not like speculators. they work a narrow, self interested group who had both the means and the motivation to manipulate the government in their favor. and so he was very cruel to speculators, and he also had an alternative way to invest money, and that is land. i remember charles perrault's father says something along the lines of command, the charlatan. we don't associate. but he has a diversion to be -- deserves to be in that category because that was the only safe investment.

the army can burn your farm. they can't burn and the land. and it's safer for the republic as well as for the person. imagine himself as one of these roman senators whose political independence was guaranteed a returning to his land. that was part of his and credibility. abigail said, that's all well and good. make about 1 percent per year. take a renter and deduct the cost. you're making 1%. i'm making a 25%. eventually he saw the wisdom of that and allowed her to make them, even as he was denouncing speculation he allowed her to make a large scale bond speculator. she sailed over to join john after the war and gosar 1784, and there's a wonderful letter

that he wrote in april, seven to 85 have ago, in massachusetts. if you read the level of -- letter, 200 pounds sterling coming to him. that is a farm. he really wants. they say farm. on the front of the letter and says, i want you to go and get this for 200 pounds sterling. if you flip that same letter over to the bank you will see where john adams writes she made me sick with the idea of purchasing bessie's place. the vote -- do you will therefore take that 200 bounce sterling and buy me more -- more bonds. she convinced him in the middle of the letter. there is plenty of evidence that she edited his letters.

she apologized when they set up the issue that from the plot -- they talked about this process that she would show his letters to her. so it was possible that that was it, although he was right in. abigail was walking by and looking over his shoulder. and saying, you're not going to buy that place, are you? in any event she did convince him in the middle of the letter to not buy that farm, but instead to buy more. so she is doing these three things. she is in trade. she is buying vermont land comanche is speculating and appreciating government securities, and you can see my pet theory. my pet theory was trashy achieve the successes that would give her confidence. she already had a lot, but she had more after the war after she made all this money for her husband. and so what i wanted to see if i looked at these three that we

have in the handout, 1782 lederberg, it would receive more confidence. 1776. by that time she has made a bunch of money for her husband's . and i have an extra time, i could take to things other superficial and similar. comparative casey how much more confident she is the second letter. does anybody else have a chance to read it? which one do you think is more confident of the two letters? he said the second one. >> that was my pet theory. >> you can already tell the i'm going to have some issues with it. what he said that?

>> i feel it is my duty. >> fair enough. fair enough. that is a reasonable connection. some things, one of the other of these two documents shows greater confidence than the other. at some .1 of my students at an idea which was imperative verbs. that's come. and does anybody here has the time to count in either of these two documents? , the first one? no need you have? yes. >> for. >> you get four. how about you, right next to him. >> well,. [indiscernible] >> anybody else did a count on the first one, the 1776 letter? you have seven. there is something called the subjunctive mandate. you may think some subjective mandates get in there, but to

all right. let's take it. i get five. you get four. we have a range. the second letter that she wrote in 1782 a the end of the revolutionary war. how many do you have? raise your hand? account. not only raising your hand with giving us a number. can you guys see it? the number is zero. how many did you? you get zero as well. so, remember my pet theory. as e-mail this money to my she had all this success, she is deemed more confident, and we see that even in -- when the writing that she is making more demands and the reality was to just the opposite. she is actually showing less confidence, at least on this issue then she had before. now, another friend of mine pointed out later that the difference between confidence and hope may be that her personal confidence is as high as it was before, even higher, but her hope is diminished. and that is why we are not

seeing as many imperative verbs. and you have some theories about why her hope might have diminished between 1776 in 1782. counter imperative because that was the very time when the founding fathers won the revolutionary war. right? but why it would her hopefulness go down during that six year timeframe? raise your hand so i can get the account. yes, ma'am. >> the voice in the legislation. they did not have the freedom. >> that did not have the freedom in 1776 either. so what's changed in 1782 temecula soulful? >> yes. >> revolution that ended and nothing changed. question everybody here that? in march for 1776, independence is about to be declared. but it has not been yet. anything is possible.

she wrote this, the boston people will appreciate this. just a couple of weeks after evacuation day. holidays. the rest of us to stop understand. but it is the day that the british evacuated boston. and in the same letter she talked about how the birds are chirping. more swiftly than they ever had before. she is upbeat, but about independence. she knows that is coming send, as you can see from her first sentence, and she knows that just of this great victory, she is up in 1776. and i think you're right. think she is down, as the two of you said, in 1782 because the founding fathers of one the revolutionary war in, but the founding mother seventh. by this time every state except new hampshire and other resigned or totally started a new end with a new constitution, and none of those states had given women the right to vote except new jersey which did it by accident. and because the british were overrunning meters in 1776.

there was a competition really quick, and they forgot to leave women out. the fix that when there were able to. and so the cement had hardened by 1782, and the wall was there. and so women have been left out. so this is actually a problem for an offer because people don't want to hear a sad story. but this is a sad story. she actually began less optimistic. she kept advocating women's rights, but i think i am persuaded that it was exactly the opposite of the truth. she actually became less optimistic. but, the story does not even end there. ask you to flip over to the backside of that same sheet. have a look at abigail adams as well. when i was writing this book sets 1816, two years before death. and ten years before her husband's death.

i came upon her will and the microphone. and most of the biographers when they get to the will, okay, describe the contents of the well and move on. and i almost moved on to. something trouble me. the have to read your handwriting. it was never good and it was even worse in 1960, the years before death. you don't need to know the specifics. but the very existence of the well, something is wrong here. and it reminded me of something, a little exchange i had with peter drumming, the librarian here at the historical society. abigail will, her will, what is the main purpose of the well? [inaudible] >> distribute property. distributive property in her well. what's wrong with that?

[inaudible question] >> people say it in different ways. i will summarize it. she is not supposed to have property. she's a married woman. her husband, john adams, very much alive and allow live for nine on july 4th to may 26. she, as a married woman, is supposed bono personal property. so you could own -- let me start. you could on a million dollars, but property, stocks, the second you marry this guy you nothing. and that million dollars is years to dispose of as you please. so personal property, as a married woman, you have no right in those days to own any of. the real estate, i alluded to earlier, woman skynyrd realistic, but you cannot control it. she could not sell it without her husband's permission, and he got all of the profit from it that went from the tenant. and so in essence she really didn't own the real estate either.

married women could not own property. widows and single women had the same prayer regimen. married women could not own property. and yet here she was, doing it anyway. she left $5,000 with the property. that may not sound like a lot. it does sound like a lot to me. but multiplied a time study to get what that would have been like. roughly it's a hundred thousand dollars that she was reading a property that the law said she did not own. and once i figured out the significance of her will, it sent me back to an exchange i had with peter on the last day of the trips in the historical society.

there were redeemed at face value $0.10 on the dollar would pay back basically a dollar on the dollar. an enormous profit. the muffin the documentation of getting the bond. i have not found a receipt yet showing that you get these bonds , but i got one showing that abbey of got bonds. with an interest to? way back in 1781 she taken some of the money they she had made from her husband and trade, some of which she already made, some interest nonurban speculation. she took some of that money. and as she put it in a letter to

her husband in 1782, she put it in the hands of a friend. a friend and she conspicuously did not name. in this little net grew and grew because she was a risk taker and she made more and more money every time. most of the interest that she made up her bond she reinvested and bought more bonds with, but not all of it. and once i started to see it acted see her spending this money. she sent money to widows to help them with food for the winter. get people, especially her sisters, one of her sisters, rihanna sister, elizabeth, had married a preacher. which was another way of saying that she was poor. her other sister married a guy named richard crane who was even worse than a preacher. he was a philosopher. [laughter] and he tried various things.

card making, you know, glassmaking. it just did not really happened. now have to say, this is another thank you to the historical society because of the wonderful cd-rom called colonial collegian's where he did not graduate from harvard. an honorary degree. and so everybody who graduated from college during the colonial time, any scrap of documentation that survives is in this amazing collection. i could go to the colonial allegiance and read up and see what a wonderful influence he had on that deal, the first person to really put books in her hand. what a failure he was financially. and never got a very uncomfortable letter from her sister in 1791 saying your husband is in a position to help his friends. of course my husband he helped

you do start with books and so forth. gallegus image of the federal government. and what a tough position for abigail adams to be in him to know that there is no position in the federal government their richer was really going to bring credit to. at the same notes year older sister? wrote letters am going to forgive this debt. she said, i feel entitled to do this because this is money which i, and -- mind. you can tell by that phrase, money which i call mine, she knew that she was being subversive by laying claim to this money because the law said it was not hers. i call it mine.

and so she agreed to forgive the debt. now, interesting when she went about it. and she wanted a receipt so that she knew the thing had been cleared. but she did not just tell mary, give me a receipt. she was down in philadelphia by that time when the government had moved. and the reason that she did not want to marry to write her directly was that john had a bad habit of reading and begins male and she did not want him to know about this. he knew about the stash of money, but she did not want him overseeing how she spent it. john had made fun of richard kranz went back in the 17 fifties for his terrible horse trader. apparently among other things. she thought @booktv think she thought that john would see that as sending bad money after good. so how you keep its secrets? abbeville letter from your sister up in massachusetts without your husband reading. well, they are adults and

married daughter was living with them. john did not open her mail. so what she was supposed to do is put the receiver and a letter but if you write abigail adams smith, the vice president's daughter, you can't frank the mail. that is still do this. they signed a letter. bill have to pay the postage. in those days you pay the postage. paid by the person receiving the male. and so if the letter was sent directly to matties you have to pay postage. abigail was we to frugal for that. so she took her seat, put it inside a letter and then put that in such a letter to john adams so that john adams will receive a letter and open it and see, oh, it's actually a letter from my daughter. he would give it to his daughter and see if it's a receipt, actually for mother and give it

to abigail. [laughter] kind of kept the use of the steps of money secret from down. she did not totally keep it a secret from john. i want to read to you from the letter that she wrote john in december 1783. i will refer to the same john and i mentioned earlier. this is one of the farm first day on the market. she knew that john really wanted to buy that farm. and she saw an opportunity for the farm. now, all of abigail adams biographers and most of jobs biographer's "this letter because you will see when i read it. she is offering to put john in debt, to go back -- to go borrow money for him to buy this far because it did not have that cash to buy the farm. she sang, unwilling -- i know that i can borrow money for you to buy this farm.

and all of us, the historians go, that is what happened to jefferson. so it is a surprise. that part is a surprise. but i am quoting it to you for a different purpose. let me just read it. so the summer of 83. he has been in france on a current trip for more than four years. if, my dear friend, you will promise to come hold, take the form it's your own hands and improve it. let me turn and dairy woman and assist you in getting a living this way instead of running away to foreign courts and leaving me have my life to mourn in with a lid, if all that. then i will run new end date for this firm. my question for people here is, who was she going to borrow this money from to buy this far for him? do you know? herself.

in the annals of the law abigail adams was offering to bribe her husband into coming home, to bribe him with his own money. he did not come home that winter , and she held on to the money. a one said it for more things. stop here questions and comments. the first thing, something of say only here in massachusetts. i cannot resist saying it. write a book like this, there's something called the uncorrected proof. that is what gets into the reviewers. in the indirect proof i said something along the lines of that the head of this document that you have in your hands, at the head of the stock commission did not refer to it as a well. the endorsement, your read on the side, she did not refer to

it as a will. she referred to it is abigail adams disposition of property. still not legal, not her property. it's interesting. i said what is the word will throughout the document. propofol less per raff she wrote my well. but let's use that as the title of my first chapter. sort of nietzsche and, my well. and also for years and everybody. came up to the massachusetts historical society for less check. this one, the well we had only seen a microphone. and maggie hogan and the colleagues and said, would you like to look at the original well we get up and looking at

that. and notice how she wrote my will. and maggie noticed that she had written that over the name of a row with the smith. and i go, oh, her daughter's daughter. and she goes, i think that actually says my niece. and she was right. she never said -- so, of course, we went and corrected just-in-time for the book to come out, but i have to mention that as the best way i can think of to say thank you all the people here. the massachusetts historical society. i'm not sure they call every mistake in the book, but i'm really grateful for catching that one. several grandson's and very difficult economic circumstances and a couple of nephews who were as well. she left them nothing. her two sons got token gifts.

but all relief for property except for those toking gives winter granddaughters and nieces i don't think it was an anti male thing. think it was this. a lot of the property went to men who were married. she clearly intended that money to get to the women themselves. nothing that was the point. having spent the previous 30 years claiming to own property that the law said she did known she was trying as far as her

power to give these other women the option of making the same plan. one offered hundred and $50. 2,000 in modern terms. her daughter-in-law catherine adams. the wife of a future president, john quincy adams, abigail son. it said to say they had issues for a family from maryland and a family that was wealthy when she was a kid. later lost of the money. father declared bankruptcy right after she married john quincy, gabrielle sons, for kids fail to marry. and the worst thing about abigail size was a susan weiner

it's a reminder that as ahead of her time she was in so many ways abigail had some very traditional ideas about the role of women in particular i guess -- guesses she did with of that money to pass right through to her three sons. francis adams and the brothers, give it to the grandson. abigail disinherited. she got nothing. i don't know what abigail would have thought about that. how that's a possibility. but it's also possible that when

catherine, married woman, took that money and gave it not to air husband, not her husband, but their three sons and did so on her own authority. would she was doing was affirming what abigail had always insisted on and what the law the night, and that was the money was hers to keep. so one last thing. the document you are holding, if you're get everything that a teefifteen handwriting, you can see that she says in the very first line that she is history in his property by and with the consent of her husband's, john adams. but the signature does not appear anywhere on the document. so it is not a legal documents that any court is bound to respect. ..

is this collaboration which has never been reported before is the most extraordinary of all. [applause] >> so what is facing the historical society library, and others, the adams papers editors, with questions. i will open the floor for questions and comments.

yes, sir? >> do we know abigail move the inventory? was she retailer? a wholesaler? >> that is a great question. she actually confined some of these things she was selling to a cousin, and also sends stuff to her famous off and on friend in plymouth, mass.. she actually had one of her sons who was a teenager handle the actual business. and so it is interesting both of these women had men up front for them. and again, it wasn't all not respectable for a woman to be involved in trades at this time but for a diplomat's wife, i can't remember what job her

husband had the time, and they both had the need to influence themselves that way. yes? wait for the microphone. >> what do you think john adams's personal feelings were about women's rights? >> i found him very situational in his attitude towards women's rights. his response to the letter you are holding was i cannot but laugh which didn't go over well with abigail, i was just testing demand obviously had failed the test and yet that same john adams at other times talked to abigail about how angry he was that the restriction that he wasn't supposed to talk politics with women. women at that time were believed

to be less good at keeping secrets and men. my wife says i'm a bigger gossip than she is that at the time women are supposed to be modeled on eve. don't tell secrets to women. one of the most amazing things for me, abigail's mother had died the previous fall in an additional epidemic and it is a really tragic story because she would not have died -- and abigail's mother helped abigail take care of their kids, one of the servants died in that epidemic, a couple kids got it very badly, tommy almost died in it. as a result on october 1st, abigail's mother died back,

abigail didn't talk in religious terms, didn't talking heavily religious terms a lot, she quoted show up and down expressing terrible distress and john's response was to write abigail beautiful letter saying my great regret at your mother's passing is she wasn't able to extend her influence beyond the borders, she could have had influence on the stage or the colony or the nation and in some ways it is a more feminist statement that what you are holding in your hands, to make his wife feel better and from other atoms experts around here, and may have had a thought about that. and get you in on this, and that was the best way to judge him is

by personal relationships. we know about congressman or whatever, judge mumbai his personal relationship, his first attitude, abigail was called navvy when she was 15, and ran home to ride in a diary about meeting these two and her sister, mary smith and she said their wits which was a terrible insult. and 4 young woman in particular to the witty, i feel sure she said something witty about john adams and he said that she is not candid. this is one of the difficulties about writing these, pretty much the opposite of what it means now. now it means i am going to tell you like it is, in those days it meant nonjudgmental, a nice

person so to a candid world, it is listen up, give us a fair shake. john wrote in the same letter she is not candid, she judged me. the first impression was negative because she was so witty and smart but he married her. why she married him is the question. but i think the fact that having realized how witty and how tough she was and having decided to marry her anyway, that is a pretty strong statement. did you want to get in on this? >> not exactly on that. one thing that always bothered me about great praise of abigail and john is we had such a wonderful record and sometimes i think we think of them as such exceptional people because of

the heights john rose to but i wonder if there are other relationships like this and other women who did things like abigail that just because we don't have the record, and i hate to say this to people i spend my life working on, were not exceptional but sometimes i think we might make the more exceptional than they really are. that is absolutely true. >> we don't have to go further to prove your point that abigail's two sisters, mary and elizabeth. harris sisters, many more of their letters survived than would have otherwise and the letters they wrote her lamenting the lack of education for young women, a topic she wrote about a lot. she wrote her on that as top topic as well. persisted in law married her brother, william smith, used in

letters to abigail before abigail use this phrase, lords of the creation. that was a word women at the time used to mock men's pretensions to be all-powerful. the lords of creation say this and that. abigail didn't use it until having learned a couple times, and one of her sisters and first receiving it from les's sister-in-law who experienced it with her 's sister-in-law who experienced it with herouise 's sister-in-law who experienced it with her's sister-in-law who experienced it with her neglectful and possibly abusive husband little lot of women passing judgment and another thing about abigail's two sisters, it is extraordinary that this statement by earning this property and writing a will, there's one loophole that

women could take to legally own personal property, it was extremely rare. and virginia and further south. it was extremely rare in new england because it violated puritan concept and called a separatist stage similar to a prenup and both abigail's sisters got prenups even though they are extremely rare. the first to get it was 3 under sister betsy, her first husband had died and before she remarried she insisted that there be a prenup as a way of protecting this property of hers from her second husband's creditor which turned out to be very wise and her second sister, and i am not sure when she got her separate a state. it is not -- the documents haven't told me that. and we know by the time of her death she had a property of trust too. i think it is bold in a different way than abigail was bold in writing a will and all this, but in that sense they

were bolder than her, she never ask for a separate state. your point is well taken. yes, sir. >> abigail for a number of years had a prickly relationship with her sister elizabeth, yet that resolve itself by the time abigail went to london because abigail send her two sons to be prepared for harvard. how did that transition from this prickly relationship? >> she will be mad at me for revealing her plans but i know maggie hogan is thinking of writing a history of abigail's relationship with her sister. we will get a better answer than but i will give you a less good answer now. abigail's big problem, big cold period with her sister betsy was over her marriage, betsy's

marriage to john shaw. work the puritans -- wasn't she a puritan? she really evolve away from the calvinist notion that everybody is destined for hell and gone will only select a few people who are predestined to not go to hell. she even believed somebody she knew who committed suicide was probably headed to heaven, showing how far she had evolve but her sister hooked up with this guy. away they met was also bad because he had begun as a border at the smith family home at the smith family home. by this time which is around the time during the revolution there were all these novels about women produced by the traveling salesman and a farmer's daughter kind of story so you just don't talk to your father's border,

certainly not alone. and abigail said i think you have the hots for this guy and that's the benighted but it was true. away she met the guy and the fact that he was a calvinist, something that didn't talk about i was really interested in her religion and her move towards unitarianism and we can talk about this agreement with john on religion. they were fairly congruent, a stronger connection between church and state than john was. he was a much bigger believer, leave church out of the public square. but she was very anti calvinist. that was the issue but it is to her credit that she reconciled herself to the marriage with john shaw, it took along time. right after the marriage abigail

road don't have kids. even after the reconciliation that he started having another crop of kids as abigail put it and she told her not to do that. part of that was it was a big sister, she was the middle sister but bigger than betsy and she felt some entitlement to order betti around so bad he didn't follow orders but as you say, by the time of death they were great friends. >> to you. >> i see somebody behind you. >> as you mentioned earlier and famous for saying remember the ladies, i am curious about what her opinions on the women that served in the military, secretly served in the military. >> i don't know of her ever

referring to marylou, molly pitcher. i am sorry to say i don't know of any reference to that, she had a wonderful and miring reference to a group of women led by debra reid to raise money to support american soldiers, but i don't think she ever commented -- does anyone want to correct me on that? i think she didn't unfortunately. >> you mentioned otis warren. james otis gave an oration in 1751 in which he also stood up for black rights and women's rights and later corresponded with an english historian so i was wondering if you could comment on the relationship between james otis and abigail adams again. >> it is not well documented.

abigail didn't need to warrant until 1773 and by that time, an expert on james otis, he had already started going by that time, he was one of those topics like abigail's rather, the alcoholic they just didn't talk about. >> insisted then. she became disenchanted with mercy otis warren, i think. can you tell us about that? is this right? 19 years for seniors, considerably older and abigail really looked up to her as being older and already having had a bunch of kids as a woman who had published or started publishing when abigail met her, she

published a plan based upon the boston massacre so her initial latitudes was finding. i don't blame you for that, but -- it declined over a bunch of issues, mercy's kids, sons, almost all bad news so abigail's sisters who were in charge of abigail's kids kept them away from her and mercy became an opponent of the constitution, people like her said this constitution is a plot by a bomb speculators to get their money and abigail was one of the bomb speculator is. abigail -- i don't think she supported it because it made her a pile of money. i don't think she supported it for that reason, but that was a big issue.

at one point, got into the orbit of john hancock who was a great enemy, amazing how many people adams -- my one grievance, i love the hbo movie but the hbo movie often portrays abigail as a port in the storm for john and really she was the storm in many cases. merci may be the one exception to this but everybody he hated she hated more. she and franklin were enemies and she had worse things to say about franklin and when he and jefferson turn against each other she never reconciled with jefferson. they tried after his daughter's death where jefferson did reconcile with john adams and john hancock, there is an exception to that because john never reconciled with her because warren wrote a history of the american revolution that had some bad things to say about

john. when they attempted reconciliation, mercy asked john to send him all these mean letters. his original copies of mean letters because she as a historian knew that if there are no documents there are no history. she wanted to ensure that john would never do that so abigail and mercy didn't. since we are talking about mercy i will tell you another important thing, mercy was the occasion of the only time that i found abigail deliberately appeared in print. there had been a guy named lord chesterfield who had written letters to his son on proper decorum and it was, of all supposedly of great writing and also of gentlemanly behavior and he wrote a letter to her own sun saying how horrible chesterfield was, said very bad things about women. one of the things he said the woman has never kept a thought

in her head for more than an hour and abigail wrote saying if he were here now i would that i would keep the things in my head for it long time and he is a jerk, put it in different ways. after getting a letter, by lord chesterfield, to a boston newspaper with reintroduction to the letter and that was published not, neither woman's name is here but that is the lead time i know of that abigail appeared, short little notes published later but that is the time that she put herself in the newspaper. >> if you had any notion, gained

her financial acuity. and how to invest on the best method. >> i will answer that in two ways, both of the confidence to take a risk. on the sophistication i think she had an early adviser, but interesting to see that by the time john was vice president she had surpassed cotton toughs. in 1787, surprised the bond was really low and wasn't sure it would be ratified and he was worried to get out of this market of bonds. she got tough say when the place is low that is a long time to be getting out of the market. buy me some more. by the time her husband was vice president two years later, he was writing abigail adams saying should i use my bond?

adams said i could buy shares in the new national bank of the united states. i do that? he would actually ask her advice. he definitely had is sophistication but surpassed him. the other question that relates to her finances and all these marvelous riding collapse of hers in favor of women's rights is what made her so confident? she had a rocky relationship with her mother, how for not she was about her mother's death and by that time they were great friends but she found her mother overly protective but i do think she learned her benevolence from her mom and her dad never got formal education, as i mentioned previously to a lot of folks, the more she read, not only did she become more literate, i was on a radio show the it did a and someone called -- was broadcast in denver at 4:00 in the

morning, what was she thinking of muslims? i was actually able to say she knows a lot more about islam than i do because in one of her love letters to john she said i would like to fly to u.s. swiftly as the other rock of mohammad. ahead to latka, a wing to course mohammad flies around and did she was actually quite sophisticated in her reading and liked to show off. financial sophistication and self-confidence which i think came from her reading. yes, sir? >> speculating early enough that it could have been called patriotism? did she ever referred to as such? >> she did not refer to it as patriotism. i don't think she was ashamed of it. i tried to present the the case of the soldiers who had to dump

their bombs at face value but there were many people who did like speculators, she didn't. she defended speculators in a sense of saying we have to pay the speculators full value because that is how you establish your credit rating. she never did it in the first-person singular. she did say we have to pay the speculator so it is interesting in february of 1790 james madison supported speculators early on but turned against them and put up a bill in congress to make speculators who bought up the bonds split the money 50/50 with the soldiers who originally owned the bonds and congress was to vote in february of 1790 and that happened to be the day the vice president's wife who had been in new york for almost a year chose to go watch the proceedings of congress for the

first time ever and so she was in a dowry as congress voted 36-13 to go down -- madison's proposal and make sure all the money went to the speculator is. so she did believe, i think she would have supported speculator is almost as much if she hadn't been one of them. it was a matter of establishing a credit rating and even the guys who haunted the army camps buying bonds, the case you could make as if they hadn't been there the bonds would have been worth zero. something because of speculators. [inaudible] >> she started buying bonds directly from the government, the same way you buy war bonds now and you are supporting the war effort. >> unless you would like it. >> she would have lost all of her bonds or if the constitution hadn't been adopted which saved the federal government the ability to lay the taxes and the

federal government assume the responsibility for paying the state tax as well as its own and the constitution hasn't been ratified, the states, many states in response to that were backing down and trying to cut deals like speculators, only half of what they wanted. she could have easily lost -- lost dollars a little strong. when you're gaining 25% interest in a factor your investment in four years, but there was risk. no question. >> she was pretty well connected. wouldn't you think? would she be guilty of insider trading? >> i have to say in abigail's defense that james lovell, it is a long story of one of his colleagues in the massachusetts

congressional delegation who basically sexually harassed her by mail. he wrote her these amazingly cheap letters, he rode at the bottom of one letter, i wish her pen name was portia. i wish i could be in bed with portia but when you flip it over it goes good friend mrs. lovell. i wish i could be in bed with good friend mrs. lovell. my wife. it is okay. a large kind of stuff he was playing on and he did, she had to keep corresponding with him because he was her kant would to john when he was in france as american diplomat and she would put up with it and actually encourage this quotation because everytime he flirted with her he gave her some information. it was partly her job to make sure congress page on his salary which it was not very reliable

about doing so lovell was helpful for that but in her defense to answer your question at one point told her now would be a really good time to buy up continental currency because we are about to refund it and support it. to her credit she didn't and i don't think it was an ethical decision. it was a financial decision but with a live one because it was wrong, the kind of currency went further down so she had taken that insider tip and would have lost a lot of money. >> time for one more question. >> no one wants that. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> i was fascinated by her feminist views. remember the ladies, you are going to be in trouble.

i am paraphrasing obviously but she warned her husband you can't rule without including what women want and what women have to contribute. this is 1700s she is saying that. >> "abigail adams" un c-span's new history series, first ladies's influence and image, called mrs. president by her detractors she was outspoken about her views on slavery and women's right. as one of the most prolific writers of any first lady she provides a unique window into colonial america and her life with john adams. join in a conversation on "abigail adams" live monday night at 9:00 eastern on c-span, c-span radio and c-span.org. >> booktv is on facebook, like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information on guess.